Zip Code Data Points on a Map View

Published: 14 Apr 2017
Last Modified Date: 20 Jul 2023

Question

Understanding how geographic roles are defined by a geocoding database in Tableau.

Environment

Tableau Desktop

Answer

By default, Tableau recognizes a set of geographic roles that can be used to geocode data to create a map view. These geographic roles are defined by a geocoding database, comprised of latitude and longitude coordinates, that comes with Tableau Desktop. Tableau organizes the geographic roles in the following order:

City
County
Zip Code
CBSA/MSA
Area Code
State
Country/Region

When you place multiple geographic fields on Detail on the Marks card, Tableau plots the data points in the field with the highest geographic role on this list.

For example, suppose you have a view that uses both city and zip code fields on Detail. Because the city field is higher on the list than the zip code field, Tableau plots the city data points in the view. When the city field is removed, the points in the view shift to show the points associated with the zip code field, because it is the next highest field on the list.

To keep the city field on Detail but plot the points in the zip code field, consider changing the city field into an attribute or set the geographic role of that field to None:

To change a field into an attribute, right-click the field in the view and select Attribute.
To set a field's geographic role to None, right-click the geographic field in the Data pane and select Geographic Role > None.